by Chris Cottle, Community Liaison to Laguna San Ignacio, Baja

July was highlighted by a visit from my mom to the lagoon.   This is one of the few places I have ever been where words and pictures truly do no justice, so it was great to have her here and to see and witness all that is daily life in LSI.   In just over a week she had a full dose of life in the lagoon, and immediately felt the welcoming and generous nature of the people here.   I think the local loan coordinator in El Datil, Minerva, indirectly (directly?) assured my mom that I am in good hands here when Minerva told me to shave my moustache and cut my hair…, then gave us an entire shark for shark tacos (it was a small shark, but large enough to give half away and have three shark-meals for two….).   Clearly mothers know best, regardless of nationality, when it comes to appearance and food….

The only advice I could give my mom in preparation before she came was, “Ignore the heat, forget about staying cool, embrace the sweat”.  I think it worked.  But, with July and August came the heat in earnest.  Days when the temperature inside what I lovingly call The Shack (where I live), regularly reach 110° F, 42° C, are now the norm, and force me to put my own advice to the test.   The clouds that would bring an always appreciated shade or shower sit tauntingly over the Sierras in the too-far distance.  The sand streets are blaringly empty thanks to summer vacation, the heat, and the dust-filled wind.

But with the sun and wind comes electricity!  The communities of the lagoon are not connected to any source of electricity, running water, sewer lines, phone lines, or trash services.  The electricity comes from small wind turbines or, more commonly, from personal solar systems (I am learning a lot about solar system maintenance and just how long into the hot night I can run a fan on my little solar system…).  Washing water comes from a desalination plant that uses water from the lagoon (from which you then fill up your own barrels to bring home), while drinking water is trucked in from San Ignacio (about an hour away over a partially paved, partially sand, partially salt-flat, partially washboard dirt road).  Latrines leave little to the imagination of where human waste comes from, or where it goes.   You take your personally produced garbage to the dump and, under advice from all, set it on fire.

The small “systems” of Western life, which are so easy to take advantage of, or to forget about entirely, are in full view here in the lagoon.  Even where, and when, food comes from is on full display.   Scallop season recently began, and trucks full of scallops (still in shell) “clog” the streets on their way to the many cleaning-stations that seem to have popped up over night.  The piles of empty scallop shells in the desert seem to be multiplying daily.

The price difference between fruits and veggies, which don’t grow here, and the price of fresh scallops, which you can find on the beach at low tide, is a telling example of the connectedness between environment and person.  A kilo of avocados, about 4, from the tienda is $74.00 pesos.   A kilo of scallops, about half a grocery bag, direct from the fishermen is just over $100.00 pesos.   And, if you show enough interest, they will proudly give you some straight from the shell to eat on the spot so they can see on your face just how good and fresh they are.  One must be smart with their money in a situation such as this- eight avocados?  Or half a grocery bag of fresh scallops?   This all makes me quite excited for lobster season in October…!

Life is just a little harder here, even for the dogs.   A recent baseball game with a handful of 11 year olds was interrupted by the death of the family dog of one of my teammates, apparently of natural causes.   I did everything I could to keep the game alive, opposed to running over to see the dog, named Yum, and helping to “carry it into the field”.  As soon as we arrived, the kids produced a rope and began to tie the rope around the dog to drag it into the monte, all the while asking why I wasn’t helping.  I stood uncomfortably on the outskirts of the group a bit unsure of how to feel or act.   The lack of emotion and ceremony expressed by these kids was another stark realization of the truncated circles of life here in the lagoon.   After watching all these little kids struggling to drag the dog away, I finally had to help, and the game resumed a half hour later.  The girl whose dog it was managed to hit surprisingly well, while I managed to strike out against a 10 year old pitcher.

All of these systems are on full display here in LSI.   You see, and are an intimate part of all aspects of these systems, A to Z.  It is impossible not to feel both connected, and slightly at odds with them all.   When they work, it is perfect harmony; when one part of any of them fail, it‘s hard not to feel like you are on the losing end of a battle when the other side knows all your weaknesses (water, food, electricity).
I will be the first to admit, at “home”, I had little knowledge about these systems of everyday life, but it has been great getting to know where all of these things come from, and where they go.   There is an art to life here, an art to being happy and an art to mastering all these important life-systems.

Chris Cottle is the newest member of the Philanthropiece team and has been working as the Community Liaison in Laguna San Ignacio, Baja, Mexico, since June 2011.  Chris is looking forward to using his Masters degree in International Development, his extensive background working on development issues, and passion for international development to the communities of La Laguna.  He will be focusing in the areas of small business loans, Community Banks, environmental education, rural health promotion, appropriate technologies, and English language lessons, just to start.

Tags: Circle of Life, Community Liaison, Elton John, Laguna San Ignacio

This entry was posted on Friday, September 2nd, 2011 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Baja, Community Liaison. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.